ConQuest (The Quest Saga) Read Free Page A

onto the badge tighter.
    “Why don’t we take Q to Chepauk?” Taylor asked Carlos.
    “Chepauk?”
    “Chepauk, our official training grounds. You want to go?” Carlos turned towards Q.
    Q nodded excitedly. Carlos led them to what Q assumed to be an elevator.
    “That’s a transporter,” Taylor said. “Teleports you to different places in the academy. Really fast!”
    Carlos pressed a button after they all got in. Immediately, Q could feel himself being stretched out like noodles. His stomach felt worse and worse. By the time they reached, Q was flat on the floor. Taylor smiled at him, giving him a hand up.
    “I’ll get used to it?” he asked, before she could even say anything. All he knew was that his stomach had made it clear that it didn’t like the ride.
    As Q stood up, he gasped at the sight before him. The whole of Chepauk was just a glass box! And a full scale battle was raging inside.
    Just then a tanker inside exploded and hurtled towards Q.
    He froze.
    Nothing happened.
    Q was astounded. The glass wall stood firm between him and the tanker. The tanker didn't even make a single scratch on it!
    “It’s a new material we have developed, transparent like glass but extremely strong. We call it ‘Cotton candy’,” Carlos said.
    Q looked inside the Chepauk. He saw what could be described as a video game battle. All sorts of high tech laser guns, tanks, armor and laser sabers were being pulled into battle. The whole scene looked like it had come out live from a Gameloft game.
    “It looks just like my video games,” Q observed.
    Carlos laughed heartily. “Who do you think makes those games?”
     
    “No way! You mean ... It can’t be...” Q stuttered.
    A woman turned to face Q. He hadn’t even noticed that she was standing there.
    Carlos introduced her to Q. “Q, meet Ravado. She’s the designer of every single sci-fi game on the face of the earth.”
    Q thought that Ravado was an odd name for a woman. She was a short lady. Her face looked exactly like a human’s, which disappointed Q. Her hair was white, but he could see a hint of a faint blue as well. She wore glasses and carried a pad in her arms. Her face looked as though she was thinking very seriously. She looked at Q, sizing him up.
    Q was breathless. His whole sci-fi gaming world made by a ‘creature’! He had to admit that it did kind of make sense. No ordinary human could have designed games like that.
    “I tend to have that effect on kidssssss,” Ravado hissed to Q.
    “Issss thisss the guy?” she asked Carlos
    The guy? What did that mean? Q thought.
    “I’ll talk to you later,” Carlos told Ravado.
    “Alwaysssss a pleasssure,” she hissed as she left.
    For an extra terrestrial lady, she sure acted a lot like an earthly snake.
    A question that kept bothering Q was why this academy had to even exist and what these ‘creatures’ were doing here. He tried to bring it up with Carlos, but he kept getting distracted every single time.
    They say try, try and try again. Q did that and finally got Carlos to pay attention to his question.
    “I guess I should tell you that aliens don’t exist. Just us humans,” Carlos said.
    “So Earth is the only planet that sustains life?”
    “Not exactly.”
    Q blinked a few times. Remember the times when your teacher taught you something and you couldn’t make head or tail of it? That’s how he felt right now.
    “Remember early man? He didn’t just appear on earth. He arrived .  The meteor that took out the dinosaurs? That was his spaceship. He was a member of a large intergalactic species. His counterparts started civilizations all over the universe.
    “So, all around the universe, just plain old humans?”
    “You’re half right. Yes, zyxians are the only race that exists in this universe but no, all of them are not the same. Different groups of zyxians adapted to their surroundings by mutating. The Earthlings hold the name Gaia. Each planet has its own name. As a species though,